Irregular Posting

Notice At present this blog is not being updated regularly as I am in the final stages of writing my thesis. I am still regularly updating my thesis progress reports if you want news

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Teaching, Fish and Chips and a Facebook Scam

Lets see how this week has been. Monday I finally gave into the migraine I was pretending I was not having over the weekend. I should have done that the previous thursday but continued to struggle with half days. I am learning slowly. So I did not make writers group which was frustrating.

Tuesday was really preparation and checking for Wednesday when I was to give another run of the course that was cancelled last week. The problem was that it was moved to k17 (a familiar room) but the instructors machine would have to be a laptop as they had not vacated the space and it was still on the previous set of machines in the room which probably were bought in about 1998, which gives you some feel for how dated it was. We had to call David up to connect the laptop but it was soon running.

Wednesday was teaching day. I managed, I think quite a few people got something from it if only knowing some other fellow users of NVivo. I really aren't the same on this as I am on SPSS. In SPSS there are some areas I go with trepidation but I can go there. With NVivo I am only starting out and there are major gaps in my knowledge and I just have to put up my hand and say "I don't know". I have the first rerun of the cancelled course on Monday

Thursday it was off to Birmingham and another supervision, put a proposal for a paper to my supervisor, which would look specifically at the way St Andrew's Sheffield negotiated (or didn't negotiate) its ecumenical relationships. The reason being that it is a reasonably contained area (essential for a paper) yet there is bits on that from both the ethnographic work and from the interviews. I also need

Friday I was in work, despite the business of the previous day. Admittedly that was after going to greek class but I did manage it in and I did get some work done. However I was so tired on the night that I went out and bought fish and chips. The good news is I have found a fairly local fish and chip shop that looks clean and does fish and chips for £3.50. They have quite a range of alternative food but I just take the fish and chips, remove the batter and microwave some vegetables. Easy and not too unhealthy.

Saturday I stayed in and wrote a piece for Ship on the walk around the world I organised. It was easy enough to write and it may or may not be published. One problem is that although there are plenty of photos none of the good ones were taken by me so permission to use them has to be gained from various other people. I have linked in the text to several but it is up to the editor to decide how many and which are actually included.

Unfortunately I have been spending slightly longer on Facebook than I do normally. There are reasons for this but Facebook isn't really somewhere I like being. Well I managed to get caught by a scam. If anyone gets offered an IQ test which many of their friends have taken don't take it. Its not an IQ test (doesn't test that only general knowledge and never gives you an IQ score, not surprising really) but is a method of getting people to sign up for snippets of general knowledge to be sent to their mobile phone. Only it is charging £5 to set up and £5 twice a week for however long you continue. You have to text it to discontinue. I got caught as it looked so much like a genuine app in facebook to begin with. Well I got myself signed off it and went to bed, only for my conscience to start bothering in the night and the result of which at about 4 a.m. this morning I was sorting out who was behind it and sending it to the facebook adminstrators. I think I have given them enough and I have removed the cookies from my machine so I am feeling pretty safe but it is most likely to fool the most vulnerable and them just not to think that they HAVE to cancel it.

However the net result was that I threw a migraine this morning so did not make Chesterfield which was a pity as I really need to get some interviews set up.

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